The Federation / Klingon Alliance

In "A Taste of Armageddon" it was Ambassador Fox's mission to obtain a treaty port on Eminiar Seven.

Fox: "... if the Federation had a treaty port here. We mean to have that port and I'm here to get it. "

No, Eminiar Seven wasn't being force to join, but the Federation apparently wasn't above employing force to get Eminiar Seven to let them in.

 

^ Fox wasn't going to use force. Not literally. He's there to persuade the Eminians. That, by definition, is never force - if he gets them to LET the Federation in, then that can't be force. He has the right to talk them into it, so to speak. That's not forcing anything.

Persuading the other side to see things the way you do, is allowed.

 

I doubt you'd find any support for the argument, either in court or in public, that saying "Pay or I'll break your kneecaps" is not forcing...

Fox no doubt would have many arrows in his quiver; he need not coerce with military force or violence alone. But negotiation often equals blackmail, and "forcing" and "use of force" should be valid terms for describing the process.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Fox was a dick, true, but there's no evidence he would have employed blackmail or anything kneecap-related in his methods. He's an ambassador. It's his job to be diplomatic. And diplomacy is, by definition, not force.

 

I say that diplomacy is, by definition, force (and indeed nothing else). And I'm right, you are wrong, nyah nyah.

...Or is there something more to this "definition" business?

Timo Saloniemi

 

I'm just saying, there is no evidence Fox intended a military takeover or any overt use of force. Indeed, he tries to order the shields lowered as a gesture of good faith. And it also seems clear that Fox has no Starfleet training nor has he ever been a soldier (in fact I'm sure he specifically says that he was not). The only indication that I can see is, Fox is on a mission to get the Eminians to *agree* to his request by their own will. Think about it: If you agree to something - if you're convinced that you want it and it's in your best interest - how can you have been forced to do it?

Kirk does invoke General Order 24, yes. But he is a Starfleet officer attempting to defend his ship and crew. Whatever force Kirk might threaten, Fox isn't involved at all.

 

^ You might want to look up the term "treaty port."

 

I think the Klingon Empire does have a lot of hypocrisy, but it has decreased over time because I'd think that by the TNG era they are committed to protecting their conquered worlds and populations. And military protection is something the Klingons probably excel at.

 

At gunpoint, say? It would certainly be in my best interest to have no more than five major openings to my head.

Timo Saloniemi

 

But that could just be Fox talking tough. For all we know his actually instructions were more like

"Ambassador Fox, the Federation Council has decided it would like a Treaty Port in the Eminiar system go and negotiate a mutally beneficial treaty that will permit one"

 

Yielding to a treaty port demand means Eminiar is giving up a major element of its sovereignty, allowing a foreign power to establish extraterritoriality ("we do just as we please here, your laws don't apply") and to operate military hardware from former Eminian turf to its own strategic ends. Or at least this is what the concept means today. Unless we assume a futuristic redefinition, it's difficult to see how Anan 7 could sign an agreement, unless Federation pressure really was so overwhelming it overrode Anan 7's concerns about being accused of treason.

Sure, there could be compensations. But "mutually beneficial" would still be but a pretty wording for the beginning of Eminiar's slow slide from a sovereign power to a vassal state.

It does pique my interest whether the disappearances were due to the local war, or merely something external that a forward base of operations (be it a forced treaty port or a friendly haven) would alleviate. If the Eminian system is a lone rock of safety in an extensive space wilderness, it would make sense for shipping to seek refuge there (either because threatened by this external force X, or simply for the universal lure of civilization), and thus fall victim to the local madness.

OTOH, Eminiar could be isolated from the wider galactic civilization not by distance but rather by this factor X, which is why no Kirk before ours came and forced them to quit their idiocy: it took an altruist and powerful organization (UFP/Starfleet) to start caring about the problem of factor X when the default solution would simply be not to go to this dangerous place.

I agree that the computers waging the war might well have targeted visiting spacecraft specifically, either in a strategic gambit to put the opposition to a difficult position, or then rather because they wanted to maintain status quo and stop outsiders from interfering. But there's one thing to consider: when computers wage war against each other, surely things would spiral out of control very fast, and escalate to literally inhuman levels where sneakiness and ruthlessness much beyond the firing of the occasional tricobolt warhead would be the norm? That the fighting is as "humane" as we see, not that different from how humans would do it, indicates that there are safeties and limiters in place - to keep the computers from switching from Eminiar vs. Vendikar mode to pure computer vs. computer mode, a switch that would both escalate the conflict and shift its focus away from the humans, whom the original arrangement was designed to intimidate. The balance of terror is maintained only if humans remain at the focus; otherwise, it soon becomes united humans vs. computers, and unity is what the arrangement was designed to prevent. Clearly, neither Eminiar nor Vendikar would agree to the war ending in something else than their respective victories!

Timo Saloniemi

 

Not going to use force? I suppose you don't need to use it. The battleship itself is threat enough.

 

That seems very likely. Fox is obviously a blowhard with a tendency to exaggerate. He does it pretty much every time he speaks at all.

 

^ But then, again there's his use of the term "treaty port."